My Name Is Khan OTT Mystery: Bollywood’s ‘King Khan’ i.e. Shahrukh Khan and Kajol starrer masterpiece film ‘My Name is Khan’ is still closest to the hearts of the audience. But have you ever noticed that a film which was released in theaters 16 years ago, sometimes completely disappears on India’s digital platforms, and sometimes suddenly appears on a rival platform?
Recently, when this film was streamed on Amazon Prime Video, a discussion broke out among the fans that why does it take so many years for a film to truly make its permanent place on the OTT platform? After all, what is the reason that international series like ‘9-1-1’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ are shown on Netflix and also on Disney+ Hotstar? Is there any secret agreement between OTT rivals? Let us understand the real game of this backstage world of OTT!
1. Non-exclusive licensing and ‘sharing’ deals
Usually, when a production house makes a film, it sells digital rights to an OTT platform in two ways: exclusive and non-exclusive.
Exclusive Deal: In this, the film will be shown only on that one platform (eg netflix Originals or Hotstar Special).
Non-Exclusive Deals: Under this contract, the production house can sell the streaming rights of its film or show to two or three different rival OTT platforms at the same time. This often happens with international shows like ‘9-1-1’, Grey’s Anatomy or ‘Friends’. Studios (such as 20th Century Studios or Warner Bros) issue non-exclusive licenses to maximize profits from individual digital rights. Same thing happened with Dhurandhar also.
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2. The case of ‘My Name is Khan’: A game of studio rights and territory
‘My Name is Khan’ was not only a Dharma Productions film, but ‘Fox Star Studios’ had a major stake in it as an international distributor, which was the reason why initially this film was available on Hotstar (without Jio), because for a time Hotstar, Star Channel and Fox Studios – all of them were part of the same corporate family. However, this math changed after Jio and Hotstar joined hands. as well as Shahrukh Khan The film also disappeared from this OTT platform.
Global and Indian Rights: It often happens that the streaming rights of a film are with one platform (like Hotstar) for India, but with Netflix for America or UK (Abroad). This is the reason why ‘My Name is Khan’ remained missing from any platform in India for some time, whereas in foreign countries it was available on Netflix or other services. When Fox and Disney merged, it took a long time for the re-renewal of its global distribution rights and then after the deal between Netflix and Warner Bros, this film also went away from there.
3. ‘License Window’ and contract expiry
In the world of OTT, no deal is ‘forever’. Whenever a platform buys the rights of a film, it buys it for a ‘window’ of 2 years, 3 years or 5 years. The interesting thing is that under this license, ‘My Name is Khan’ was released for a few years. prime video It was also being streamed on YouTube and then as soon as the time ended, during 2024, it disappeared from there too.
Suppose Prime Video signs a 3-year contract for a film in 2020. As soon as that contract ended in 2023, the film ‘disappeared’ from the platform from 2024. After this if Netflix or hotstar If the company makes a better bid, the same film gets shifted to another rival platform for the next 3 years.
4. What do Indian law and CCI rules say?
In India, OTT platforms have complete freedom to compete with each other under the Digital Media Ethics Code of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) and the Competition Commission of India. According to law, no studio can create a monopoly. If a production house does not have its own OTT platform, then it can lease the rights to whoever it wants for a fixed period of time.
So the next time you see your favorite movie or series suddenly disappearing from one platform and appearing on another app, understand that this is not a technical glitch, but a deliberate game of licensing windows and non-exclusive contracts worth millions of dollars.
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